Special thanks to Ralph Heibutzki for supplying this previously unseen article to blackmarketclash.com © Ralph Heibutzki

Recording of Cut The Crap

The year's remaining outings were limited to four gigs for the Italian Communist Party (September 7-11), and a two-night stand (December 6-7) at the Clash's traditional 4,500-capacity London stronghold, Brixton Academy - to benefit miners locked in a life-or-death strike against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's aggressively monetarist administration. This relatively unhurried pace did not exempt Clash City's newest recruits from a regimen that lent an ironic slant to "The Call-Up"'s central query: "Who gives you work, and why should you do it?"

The trio spent much of the summer rehearsing from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m., dividing time between their Camden Town space and later at "a little dungeon" that White found in his north London neighborhood of Finsbury Park. While Paul showed up occasionally, Strummer never did. The boys' drab routine turned positively surreal after being instructed to arrange what appeared to be yet another crop of Joe's originals, working from tapes which had chord structures but no lyrics.

"Yeah, seriously, it was very boring - weeks and weeks of playing those chords!" White chuckles. "Joe had written out all the chords, but how can you arrange them, if you don't know what the song is about? I tell you, most of the situation was total madness." So, when Vinyl informed them, "You're off to Italy"; "we were just [thinking], 'thank God we're going away and doing something, instead of fucking around in a studio every day,'" says White.

The Italian gigs earned warm responses, even if the sets hewed to old standbys, and some rustiness was evident on a half-speed "Are You Ready For War?" and "Three Card Trick", although "Sex Mad War" packed plenty of brutish fire.

Even then, however, Strummer had travelled separately from his new colleagues - whose alienation deepened when he began intimating that their abilities might not be required for the upcoming recording sessions. "Me and Vince were told, together, that we weren't going to be on the new record, just like that," says Sheppard. "It started to get really nasty, pretty uncertain, pretty insecure, basically. Attempts were made to explain [the situation], but they weren't convincing."

According to the Baron, such a closed shop suited Rhodes' mindset: "He wasn't as respectful of individuals as one would think, just like any prick boss: 'You can be replaced.' That's the stance Bernie took: 'Fuck you, you're gonna be along, or not? You're gonna divert, you're outta here.'"

"You can forget Joe, you can forget Paul, you can forget everybody," White asserts. "Bernie was the man with the controls, the one dictating. I felt I was in a situation where I had to listen to him."

In this fractious climate, sessions began in January and February 1985 for what would become the Clash's final, troubled album, Cut The Crap. As later events bore out, its painstaking, piece-by-piece construction in Munich, Germany, could hardly have been more removed from the group's West London roots, or traditional operating methods.

Yet the Rhodesian game plan proceeded as outlined, apparently with his singer's unilateral backing, while Sheppard found himself relegated to a lesser role of fleshing out arrangements, doing rough mixes, and completing assorted minor production tasks.

"I was taken into the rehearsal rooms and played the demos a couple of weeks before they went into the studio. I joined them after they'd done the drum programming," he says, "and some rhythm guitar. Norman went on the same flight - a very weird way of making a record, in my opinion."

Unlike his two peers, at least he graced all the tracks; the first weeks were largely spent programming drums, with assistance from Michael Fayne (later of Roachford). However, despite an avid courtship by Rhodes - or possibly because of it - "the lucky bastard got out of that [situation] before Bernie had anything legal with him," says Howard.

Paul only played on a couple of numbers, his absence chalked up to lack of interest, or assurances that the final recordings would occur later, leaving Norman Watt-Roy - a core member of Ian Dury & The Blockheads - to fill in the four-stringed blanks.

For additional hired-gun reinforcement, Rhodes turned to Blockheads keyboardist Mickey Gallagher - who, like Watt-Roy, had contributed to the triple album Sandinista!, which Joe had done his best to renounce in public. (Unlike the latter affair, however, neither Blockhead's names were credited on the Crap album, which did award Fayne a "special thanks.")

Nick reckons that his presence became more desirable after Rhodes felt his original concept being strained to the limit: "I remember hearing it - they'd been rehearsing with Pete, Norman and Mickey, and it sounded like a pub band, and that obviously wasn't what Bernie wanted."

Once in Munich, Sheppard found himself learning songs that hadn't been played live before ("Cool Under Heat," "Life Is Wild," "Movers And Shakers," "Play To Win"). Still other numbers, like "We Are The Clash," were being revisited in radically different guises, while a handful ("Glue Zombie"; "In The Pouring, Pouring Rain"; "Thank You, Chief") would languish unreleased.

However, Nick quickly grew disillusioned with the record's piecemeal assembly: "By the time I actually heard them [the songs], I didn't really have a critical faculty in my body left," he sighs. Asked to elaborate, Nick responds: "It was more a question of, 'Right, let's try to work out what to do with these.' I didn't consider whether they were good or not - it wouldn't have made an ounce of difference, anyway, because no one would have listened."

Ironically, the massed backing vocals that would so markedly define the finished product - and later cited as its most contrived production trick - provided one of the few pleasurable diversions, according to Nick.

"We got a great big crowd down to a studio in West London, and shouted the backing vocals, out. A funny night," he recalls. "I think it was about 30 friends, acquaintances, fans, and people like that."

Howard and White were eventually allowed to join the sessions, but only after driving across Europe in subzero temperatures. "The radiator froze, everything froze, the van was totally freezing, and we arrived there in six feet of snow," says White.

Unfortunately, "most of the album had been recorded," he adds, with a bemused laugh. "I'm serious! Maybe that was one of Bernie's punishments, or something."